model_specification objectidentify_subject.Rdidentify_subject is a data descriptor function used to identify a
subject identifier variable in the data. If no identify_subject entry
is provided then patient IDs will be constructed based on their row ordering
in the data by the various estimation routines.
identify_subject(name, group = NULL)The name of the variable in the input data containing the subject identifier.
If there are repeated clusters of observations per subject, group identifies each group of observations. This is needed for data structures where each group may have multiple observations.
A object that can be used by specify_models to add subject ID
information to the data description object.
If you are using a study design where there can potentially be multiple
pseudo trials for a given patient in the data, then the subject ID can be
used to appropriately group trial entries together, e.g. for cluster-based
bootstrapping; importantly, as a result, you should always use
identify_subject at a subject level rather than a pseudo trial level.
When there are multiple per-patient pseudo trials in conjunction with interval data, then each pseudo trial's entries must appear contiguously in the data and be sorted by time.